The title track of this blockbuster album is a lot more thoughtful than its explosive introduction leads one to believe. The song is in fact a double entendre contrasting the American Empire - which by the late 1980s was already beginning to show the cracks - with the empires that are built by street gangs and drug dealers.
"Empire" is the 6th track on the album, runs 5:24, and was co-written by frontman Geoff Tate and guitarist Michael Wilton. In a November 2010 interview with Get Ready To Rock, Tate explained: "[It] dealt with issues like gang warfare and drugs and how the police [deal] with that and in that situation nothing has really changed!"
The middle of the track includes a spoken section relating to law enforcement spending in the US comparing it unfavorably with spending on space exploration and national defence. And it actually begins with a spoof recording of the then recently departed President. Former film actor Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was first Governor of California (1967-75) and later the 40th President of the United States, occupying the White House from 1981 till 1989. An apparently half-senile Reagan is apparently leaving a message on an answerphone. The keyword here is apparently, on both counts!
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